Inlet Technologies has been named as one of the technology partners for the upcoming XXI Olympic Winter Games. Inlet’s Spinnaker will provide Smooth Streaming in HD for NBC Universal’s coverage of the Vancouver event, which takes place Feb. 12-18.

The Spinnaker family of encoding solutions is ideally suited for live sports as it provides broadcast-quality streams over the Internet to multiple screens and devices. With its built-in support for adaptive streaming protocols, including Microsoft IIS Live Smooth Streaming, Spinnaker generates high-quality streams that enhance online viewing of live sports action.

For NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics, Spinnaker will provide real-time HD streams at resolutions up to 720p. Spinnaker also will enable Olympic Winter Games fans on NBCOlympics.com to easily switch between multiple events. The goal is provide viewers with higher quality video and viewing controls than in the past, helping NBC to improve viewer retention and the time fans spend enjoying Olympic Winter Games coverage online.

“Inlet is proud to help NBC deliver the highest quality live streams of Vancouver Winter Olympics coverage,” says John Bishop, senior vice president of strategy and business development, Inlet Technologies. “Spinnaker, combined with IIS Live Smooth Streaming, will ensure that viewers have access to higher quality video and viewing controls than in the past, helping NBC to improve viewer retention and the time fans spend enjoying Olympic Winter Games coverage online. We look forward to being part of this monumental event.”

“NBC’s broadcast of the Vancouver Winter Olympics is a great opportunity for a broad audience to experience the type of HD-quality live online video that Microsoft and its partners can deliver with technologies like Silverlight and IIS Live Smooth Streaming,” says Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft Corp. “Inlet’s encoding solutions are essential to providing viewers with the highest quality IIS Live Smooth Streaming video that will enrich the NBC online experience of the Olympic Winter Games.”

“We approach every Olympics with the goal of delivering the best possible viewer experience,” says Miller. “With Inlet’s Spinnaker, we’re able to take a major leap forward with advanced video player controls and the first-ever HD delivery of online Olympic Winter Games video.”

Today’s online video experience has become much more interactive and personal, with the Internet no longer seen as a smaller screen television, but rather as a unique platform that can provide a richer experience. Spinnaker’s support of technologies such as DVR-like capabilities, instant replay, and IIS Smooth Streaming has been instrumental in boosting the quality of experience for end users. With Spinnaker, URLs or captions, such as scores and statistics, can also be inserted directly into the live stream.